Autoblog UK

When I found a family of mice feasting on my breakfast cereal in the kitchen cupboard, I thought that was probably the worst thing that could ever happen to my house. I felt my sacred ground had been invaded by uninvited, disgusting little squatters. Even now, months after they've departed, I can still hear the sound of the munching at night and have to rock myself to sleep.

When I see what some other less fortunate people have to put up with, I put things in perspective and complain less. Some people are invaded by drink-drivers and their cars. Like the Australian couple whose bathroom wall was destroyed by a car which lost control and ploughed into their house.

That was already bad enough, but the misfortunes of the Melbourne homeowners didn't end there. The car broke a gas pipe which caught fire – the blaze was put out very quickly, but not quickly enough to save the house from being nicely baked all over. Whatever wasn't destroyed by the fire and smoke got soaked by the firemen's powerful hoses.

The poor couple are now between a rock and a hard place - do they sit where its burnt or where it's wet? And it's not like they can have a nice bath to relax, what with having no hot water or bathroom wall.

Don't know what to get your other half/little one/gran/in-laws for Christmas? Look no further, here's a present that would make anyone happy: a road kill calendar.

The gory little number, featuring foxes, badgers and other woodland creatures has been released just in time for Christmas and is supposedly a massive hit already.

The "artist" behind this delightful idea is a Mr Kevin Beresford. The 57-year-old man travelled the UK for a while, stopping at gruesome sights of dead animals and snapping away.

He claims having received a large amount of orders already and believes the provoking photos are a refreshing change to the usual calendar material: "I think customers are fed up with Peter Andre's six-pack and want something different. It's good to push the boundaries" he adds.

Now it's really a matter of taste. Which do you prefer checking out over your morning coffee? Peter Andre? Or a pureed badger?

The motorsport great John Surtees has become the first person to drive a sports car through the channel tunnel during a charity stunt. The drive was one of the events celebrating the 15th anniversary of the tunnel's opening.

The 1964 Formula 1 winner, who is still the only person to have claimed world records on both 2 and 4 wheels, drove an electric powered Ginetta G50 EV through the 31-mile tunnel.

He didn't break any speed records this time though as he had to stick to the 50km/h speed limit.

What didn't help with keeping a good time was also his constant stopping to have a closer look at the tunnel, which he called "a tremendous engineering feat".

"You certainly wouldn't want to be subject to any claustrophobic feelings down there.The tunnel is very small in parts," added the 75-year-old after eventually resurfacing in Coquelles, France.

The last thing you would want to do if you had one of the 200 existing Bugatti Veyrons would be to suffer a tiny scratch, let alone drown it altogether in 3ft of salty water.

Unfortunately this is exactly what happened to Gilbert Harrison in La Marque, Texas.

The car enthusiast and collector got distracted by a pelican and drove his £1.25million pride and joy into a nearby lagoon, destroying its powerful engine, 16 cylinders and four turbo chargers in about 15 minutes.

The poor man has only himself to blame. Well, him and the pelican I guess. If you have something as nice as a Bugatti you shouldn't take your eyes off it, even if a flock of dodos was passing by: a) because it's so damn nice, b) because it's so damn expensive and c) because it's so damn rare.

Seriously, what was he thinking?

If you collect exotic cars you should at least make sure you're able to handle them otherwise, as Harrison demonstrated, you could be praying your insurance company has a very sympathetic attitude.

Watch the footage of the car plunging in the lake (warning: this video contains swearing)

And watch it being dragged out

Playing Russian roulette has apparently become slightly boring and predictable. That's according to the Bulgarians, who decided it was about time to come up with a better, riskier and stupider version of the game.

The rules are simple – take a car, race it insanely fast through red lights at night against others and see if you make it first and alive. If you do, you could win up to £5,000. If you don't, well...

With a large selection of deaths on offer – embedded in a post, underneath a truck, off a ravine, choking on your air-bag etc, this game is much more exciting than the old Russian roulette with its one and only option.

However, there is a strict set of rules you will have to follow in order to get your money. For example, if you touch your brakes or crash into a pedestrian you will be disqualified and can wave bye-bye to the mullah. That is whether the pedestrian dies or not.

The game started in the busy streets of Sofia at the end of the summer and is very popular among SUV male drivers in their early twenties. The little daredevils are keeping the authorities busy as they try to tackle the problem. The illegal races are also attracting large and blood-thirsty crowds of spectators, who inadvertently might end up being part of the game.

Kids, don't try this at home...

It seems that animals in the US have no issues crashing (into) others' vehicles. They also seem superstrong, going on pretty deadly journeys only to escape unharmed and – according to photographic evidence – a little smug.

Following the adventures of the travelling Harlem cat last week, a coyote has adopted the same means of travel, taking an eight-hour journey under the bonnet of an apparently very comfy Honda Fit.

A brother and sister on a 600-mile journey to Nevada hit the coyote at 75mph. They didn't stop, being pretty sure the poor thing would have been killed on the spot. However, when they eventually reached their destination they discovered him snugly wedged between the radiator and bumper.

The siblings, Daniel and Tevyn East, failed to spot the furry intruder twice when they stopped for petrol. Daniel East was amazed when he discovered the death-cheating animal which he named Tricky. "Somehow the conditions were just right for it to survive the trip" he commented.

Tricky the coyote was taken to the shelter only to escape hours later. Probably trying to hitch a ride home....

Every child should be taught good manners – wipe your feet before entering the house, say thank you when given a biscuit, finish your parsnips and refrain from telling Grandma she smells like the attic.
And last but not least, say hello and goodbye. Conscientious parents will teach the "hello and goodbye" routine – generally accompanied by over-exaggerated waving motions – to their kids pretty much from birth.

Now in China, in the village of Huangping, the notion of politeness has been extended a notch, and kids must salute passing cars. Every child should salute passing cars on their way to and back from school. This rule, which has supposedly been passed to teach kids respect, actually doubles as a money saving scam. If kids make cars aware of their presence, no speed bumps will be needed around school areas, saving the town a bundle.

Needless to say, this is a little backwards but also could end up achieving the exact opposite. Drivers could start saluting back, becoming distracted and ending up smashing into trees. The road to school could end up scattered with fuming cars, broken poles and injured people. Kids could be in great danger.
They could also start getting confused between people and inanimate objects and start saluting everything around, turning playtime into a mad affair...

I thought the excitement of stealing a car was mostly fuelled by the fact that you need to take risks. You need to act with nonchalance. You need to act like the car is yours in front of passers-by while you frantically try to open the door with a hair pin. Then there's also the tricky part of actually starting the car by sticking two wires together, and avoiding a potentially lethal electric shock. This is the challenge. This what makes it exciting.

But I am wrong. This breed of thieves seems to be dying down, giving way to a new, slightly precious style of theft. Before nicking your car, the robbers will first break into your house and grab your car keys. So when they get around to taking your car, they can do it in a much more pleasant, much less suspicious manner.

Of course, getting caught will lead to a double sentence for car theft AND house burglary. So the reason for this new thieving trend – which has risen by 5% in the last 3 months – leaves me unsettled. Is this clever? Lazy? Stupid? Adventurous? I just can't decide.

All I know is that I feel sorry for the victims, who on top of being gutted for losing a car have also been shown how easy it is to break into their home and how predictable they are for leaving their car keys in the bowl on the desk by the phone. Ouch.

It's happened to all of us before: being occasionally woken up in the dead of night by a motorised maniac trying to break the speed of light.

Now, what has happened to very few of us is to be woken up by a car crashing onto our roof after taking off and flying for a few metres.
An Australian couple woke up in the early hours to the sight of a vehicle - passenger still in it - poking through their bungalow roof.

It seems the driver, most certainly drunk and undeniably stupid, challenged another car to a race. His car unfortunately hit a ramp-shaped mud mount and was sent flying at the speed of 100kph.
Both car passengers escaped with minor injuries and are resting in hospital. While the driver was found still behind the wheel, his buddy had tried to escape but got trapped in the roof.

Inspector Gretch of the Australian police declared: "To have an accident which starts 90 metres away and actually gets a vehicle airborne, there would have been substantial speed involved."

Substantial idiocy too.